MAKING QUALITY CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE REAL: HOW WE ACHIEVED NEW HEIGHTS IN OUR CUSTOMER-SUPPLIER RELATIONSHIPS

摘要

Customer satisfaction and loyalty has received much attention over the past 10-15 years, and because of our current economic forces, that's not likely to change anytime soon. Despite a wide variety of tools and approaches, from Customer Satisfaction Measurement (CSM) to Customer Relationship Management (CRM), many companies have come up short when it comes to really satisfying and retaining customers over time. This is a case study about one company's experience as it faced that same challenge. After spending a great deal of time and effort to better understand the satisfiers and behaviors of their customers, they found they still weren't getting the results they wanted. That changed considerably when they launched a customer-supplier workout process that went far beyond the metrics and data and helped them get to the heart of building customer loyalty. Specifically, that workout process was a closely facilitated meeting where the customer and supplier teams jointly identified, examined and committed to specific improvements around common interests, concerns and opportunities. This paper gives an overview of the steps leading up to that workout process, what made it unique, the learnings and results that ensued, and how the company created buy-in, both internally and with the external customers.